


Double Exposure

by Asphyxia



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/F, Fluff, bae over bay AND bay over bae, realities overlapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 09:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9118159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asphyxia/pseuds/Asphyxia
Summary: Max sighed again. For being eighteen, she suddenly felt very old. “Never mind. Before I say anything else, Chloe…the storm. The lighthouse. What happened?”Max finds herself toeing the line between two realities and finds that her influence on reality is more tenuous than she previously thought. Fluffy and angsty Pricefield of the 'multiple outcomes are canon' variety.





	

If you kill a butterfly in the past, you change something the future. It was a cliché notion that Max had heard about a billion times in the course of her eighteen years of life, and she had become pretty sick of it within the first million. However, sitting in the passenger seat of that truck that always seemed to be only milliseconds from breaking down, those words had never seemed more relevant. Chloe was vibrant and fragile and ephemeral and all of those colorful five dollar adjectives Max would normally only use to describe photographs in embarrassingly nerdy blog entries. Chloe was bright and brilliant and she glowed like one of the cheap glowsticks they used to buy from the dollar store and Chloe _was_ the butterfly. Which brought about the thought…if you save a butterfly in the past, do you kill the future?

Max wasn’t sure what she’d done. Honestly, it had felt to her that she’d torn apart the very essence of time itself when she stood by that lighthouse in the storm, Chloe’s hands clasped in hers, and there was no way to make it right. Everything had been so confused, so jumbled, and so Max had promised Chloe that she wouldn’t forget about her and that had been hard, that decision had been hard. Impossible. But she’d made it, she’d honored Chloe’s wishes this time and she’d been able to put things right. Or so she thought. 

Max had attended Chloe’s funeral, and it was the single hardest thing she had ever done in her life. She’d watched Joyce and David cry, watched people she didn’t even know _knew_ Chloe walk away from the cemetery with their hands clasped tightly in that desperate, breathless grip of those that have lost something. For two straight weeks after classes resumed, her attendance was dismal, and no one questioned it. A tragedy had happened, and though none of the other students had any inkling of just how personal this tragedy was to Max, it seemed normal, apparently. A week in, Kate left a bag of cookies and several books at the door along with her homework assignments, and told her that it was okay, that no one was spreading any rumors, that Max wasn’t the only one who wasn’t going to class and that everybody understood. This did remind her to drag herself out of bed for long enough to give Victoria a long lecture about not posting any incriminating videos online if she was planning to—which was met with a startled expression and Max knew she had been victorious—but for the most part, she remained in bed surviving on a diet of Twinkies and going through more tissues than a frat house. 

Until then, Max had never realized how much one single person could cry, and how raw a nose could become from perpetual blowing. She’d done the right thing, hadn’t she? So how was it possible for it to hurt her heart this much? Maybe this was what being selfish really felt like, the perfect example of how imperfect and ridiculous a human being really was. The town was spared, but rather than being happy she’d been able to avert the consequences of her own actions she’d been a broken pile of anguish. There had been so many parts of her that knew how much it would hurt, but actually experiencing it…actually _feeling_ it was a different thing altogether. It was almost more than she could take. It felt like the emotional equivalent of driving a red hot poker through her hand, and so when she woke up on a Tuesday morning two weeks after Chloe’s death to a text from the same aforementioned dead girl, she was first baffled and fell back into bed. What followed next was anger. Was there seriously someone sick enough in this town to be pranking her like this? And how had they gotten Chloe’s phone? Could this honestly be her? No, she was dead. Max couldn’t rewind anymore. The whole thing made her head hurt so much that it took nearly twenty minutes for her to respond. In these twenty minutes, she received five more texts that her phone innocently informed her were from Chloe.

**Hey, are you still asleep? It’s like noon. Rise and shine, sleeping beauty.**

**Are you blowing me off or should I chalk this up to a night of all night raging?**

**Come on, Maximus. Don’t make me break into your dorm room.**

**Or I would, if I knew which one was yours. I guess I could just sit out here all morning, though.**

**Come on hippie, don’t make me use emoji on you.**

Max wasn’t sure what to believe, though the texts were fairly convincing. Okay, so they were extremely convincing. She wasn’t sure if her heart could take much more crushing and still remain in a distinct heart shape rather than deflating into a popped balloon, but as it often did the cat, curiosity killed the Max was well. Cautiously, she slid out of bed and moved to the window. Out on the street was a familiar too-shitty-to-be-in-one-piece-but-somehow-defying-the-laws-of-physics truck, parked in a no parking zone near the fire hydrant, and Max could not possibly have imagined the flash of blue hair inside. Confusion and happiness and fear were playing a three-way tug of war on her heart and it wasn’t entirely clear who the winner of this game was as Max threw on some pants with her pajama shirt and ran mindlessly to the door. 

And this brought her thoughts full circle, to her current spot beside Chloe in that same truck, rattling haphazardly down the unkempt, woodsy streets of the outer limits of Arcadia Bay. Chloe seemed to be implying that they’d had some sort of plan today, but Max was completely unaware of anything going on around her besides Chloe, breathing and talking and laughing in the driver’s seat with her chipped blue nails tapping along to the beat of some nameless grunge song on the fuzzy radio.

“Are you listening to me?” Chloe eventually asked, and it was the first thing Max had actually comprehended that came out of the blue-haired teen’s mouth since they’d set off on their drive. She’d been too busy staring at Chloe and mindlessly mulling over the situation at hand ten thousand miles an hour to fully comprehend the words coming out of her companion’s mouth. 

“No,” Max admitted, and Chloe rolled her eyes and aimed a fake punch into her shoulder.

“What’s up with you today?” she asked. “You’re acting weird. And not like, normal Max weird. Like should I be worried about you trying to eat my brains weird. You’re not wearing shoes. And why is your nose all chapped? You’re sending off hella fucky vibes and I feel like you must have done some kind of massively shifty rewind for you to be giving me this much silent treatment. So spill. What’s up?”

Max, to her own credit, actually managed to listen to Chloe’s words this time, and when she finished, she took in a long, deep breath, and ran her hands down her face. “You might wanna pull over for this,” she informed Chloe, who obliged silently, taking one of the many turn offs on the fairly rural road and easing the truck into a parking lot that bordered a set of trail heads into the woods. When the engine was safely off and Chloe had removed her seatbelt so she could swing her legs more comfortably up onto the dash, Max took a long, deep breath, and began to explain. 

“I didn’t rewind,” she informed the driver. “I can’t rewind anymore. My power has been gone since the storm. But you were dead. Last night when I fell asleep you were dead. And now you’re not and I don’t know how.”

The legs came down from the dash, and Chloe gave her an incredulous look. “Wait, what?” 

Max sighed again. For being eighteen, she suddenly felt very old. “Never mind. Before I say anything else, Chloe…the storm. The lighthouse. What happened?”

“What?” Chloe asked her with a cocked eyebrow, and she leaned forward in her seat a bit. “You know what happened.”

“No, I don’t. I thought I did, but now I don’t know what to think. Please, Chloe, just tell me.”

“Okay,” Chloe agreed, crossing her arms and glancing out the windshield into the woods. “You said the lighthouse would be safe, so we went there. There you… I don’t know. Stroked out or something, and when you came back I tried to get you somewhere safe. Then we realized we were fucked, so I gave you that pic you took of the butterfly that first day and told you to go back and let me die so none of it would happen, but you tore it up,” Chloe explained, and at this point, Max’s mouth went dry. “So we watched the storm, and it just kinda…decimated everything.” Max could hear a whimper escaping from her own mouth, and Chloe placed a hand on her shoulder. “Why? Why are you asking me that, Max? What happened in your version of reality?”

Max wrapped her arms around herself for comfort, and she felt Chloe’s arm come around her shoulders in response. For that small gesture of comfort, she was immensely grateful. “I…I didn’t tear up the picture,” she admitted, and it felt like shooting Chloe herself to tell her this. “I went back, and you died and…I saw your coffin. I went to your funeral. And now…now you’re here, and I don’t…” at this point, she could feel tears streaming out, and her voice broke, barely understandable, she was sure. “And I don’t know how we got here. I don’t know what’s happening anymore. But…I’m so happy you’re here.” Pathetically, she clutched at the front of Chloe’s shirt, and she could feel one of Chloe’s hands mussing at her hair. It was clear the other girl was completely at a loss for words. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry that both choices had to hurt you so much. I made one that killed you, and then I made one that killed so many other people, and I don’t even know which one to apologize for right now because they were both my choices. I made both of them. Even if this is reality right now…” it was difficult to even form coherent sentences, but Max did her best, tripping over her words rather impressively. “I still…I let you die, Chloe. I chose to let you die and I let you go and I’m so, so sorry.”

“Whoa,” was all that came out of Chloe’s mouth, and Max was dimly aware of herself being pulled to her friend’s chest. She clung to Chloe like a lifeline, and she cried harder than she had cried even in the days after Chloe’s funeral, a mixture of confusion, relief and guilt eating away at her, carving away bit by bit at her and she wondered what would really be left of her in the end. “It’s fine. It’s okay. Look, you made the choice that I asked you to, and I’m so proud of you. You were strong, and…fuck. Max, I’m here now. So you don’t need to feel bad, okay? I don’t know what happened either, but I’m not dead and you’re not dead and right now, that’s what matters, okay?”

Max had never before experienced the feeling of harboring guilt over the outcomes of two completely opposite choices at once before, and it was far too much for her consciousness to bear, so she just clung to Chloe, who was like an anchor, the brightness of that blue hair peeking so carelessly out from under her beanie like a light in a storm, as ironic a simile as she knew it was. She simply sobbed until she was out of tears, as she had so many times over the past few weeks, and then she stayed slumped against Chloe, more lying on her than sitting at this point, and continued to shake. 

“Chloe,” she whispered finally, her voice shaky. “Your mom.”

“She’s okay,” Chloe assured her softly, and the feeling of her hand rubbing her back undid just the faintest knots of despair and confusion. Max instinctively leaned into the touch. “My mom is okay. The diner made it through the storm, just barely. Huge chunk of out the side of our house from a tree hitting it, I guess we were lucky nobody was home. We’ve been staying in a hotel since the storm happened because you know. Epic fucking hole right through the dining room.”

“And David?” Max breathed.

“He was at Blackwell. Pretty sure you at least know it didn’t reach your school, considering you woke up there. Max, relax. I know it’s bad, but try not to think about it, okay? It’s not gonna help. You’re just gonna drive yourself crazy. That’s actually the reason we’re out here instead of going to town. I didn’t want you to see it all again. I brought us a picnic and everything.”

“Thanks…” was all Max could muster, and the words sounded hollow. She didn’t want to ask how many people had died in the storm, or how many had been injured. She didn’t want to ask how much of the town had been destroyed. At the moment, she wasn’t even sure she could take hearing it. By now, she was mostly lying across Chloe’s lap in a truly depressing fashion and she forced herself upright enough to give her a proper hug. “I don’t know what to do, Chloe. What do we do now? How do we…deal with this?”

“We don’t let each other go,” Chloe answered simply. “Ever.”

There was nothing they could do, but Max knew Chloe wasn’t going to say it aloud, because there was no point. They both knew that this, their current reality, was going to continue and there was nothing to be gained from waxing melodramatic about the futility of the situation, and so they remained locked in their embrace, Max acutely aware of the ridiculous amount of tears she had gotten on Chloe’s shirt and jacket. 

“I won’t ever let you go,” she whispered. “I promise.” 

The sentimental words didn’t change the situation, but they lifted the darkness somewhat, and when Chloe very chivalrously used a Burger King napkin to wipe Max’s tears away, her lips jerked upward just barely in a shaky smile and she slowly ran the tip of one index finger across Chloe’s lower lip, clearly surprising the other girl. There was brief moment of uncertainty before she shifted just enough to close the gap between them, kissing Chloe for the second time and holding onto a handful of the front of her shirt as Chloe had a chance to return the gesture this time. Her hands were in Max’s hair, and rain began to fall lightly on the roof of the car as the two got lost in the tenderness of the mostly chaste affection for long enough to forget that there was a world outside of the car’s interior, if only for this short time. Eventually they ended up slumped up against the passenger side door in a rather uncomfortable but still somehow enjoyable pose, Chloe’s arms hooked tightly around Max’s shoulders as the two watched the gentle storm outside, much calmer than the one that had been Max’s doing.

“Your powers are really gone, huh?” Chloe asked after a long and solemn silence. Max nodded, the side of her head against Chloe’s chest and under her chin. “Wow. So I guess this is really it, isn’t it? No more do overs.”

“Can we really live with this?” Max asked softly, her hands coming up to grip Chloe’s arm lightly for support. “With what happened because of me?”

“Yeah.” Chloe’s response was firm. “We can, because we have to. And it’s gonna be okay. Shit, Max, you’re stronger than anyone I know. You can get through this. And we’re together. _We_ can get through this. There’s a we. That definitely counts for something. So we’ve just got to stick together. Like glue, right?”

It was a cheesy thing to say, and Max would normally have smiled at it, but now she just nodded. Somehow, though, hearing Chloe talk so normally was grounding, and Max reminded herself that as difficult as it would be, this world and this reality were what she was going to have to live with, and in time, she would be able to come to terms with it. As heavy as the weight of the guilt of what had happened because of her was, the fact that Chloe was here beside her, warm and real and _alive_ was in itself an opposing and pleasing reality and sensation. Max chose instead to focus on that, on Chloe’s presence, on her warmth and the feeling of her chest rising and falling with every breath. 

Someday, Max would tell Chloe just how heavily she had fallen for her, just how much she meant to her in that respect. But not now. Right now, Max felt she had a responsibility to bear the burden of the consequences of this current and permanent reality before she could indulge in what she truly wanted to say. There would be time for that later, when she and the city had begun to heal. For now, she was satisfied with just Chloe, her scent. Her heartbeat. For now Chloe was enough, and in time, she could say everything that needed to be said. Because the one truth was that even without those wonderful and terrible powers, life did indeed continue to march on.

And one thing that Max Caulfield would have, even now as a normal girl, was time.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first LIS fanfiction ever so please be gentle with me. I really wanted to write something awful where it's like SORRY MAX YOUR CHOICES DON'T MATTER and I ended up writing this in one go at 3 AM so I apologize for any mistakes. This is unbeta'd and proofread only by me. I couldn't stop thinking about the possibility of both endings being canon and I haven't been able to shake this idea for a while.


End file.
